


The one you save first

by androbeaurepaire



Category: Batman - All Media Types, DC Extended Universe, Justice League (2017), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: (sort of), Barry's attempts at figuring out heroism : the sequel, Bruce Wayne & Barry Allen Friendship, Bruce's attempts at dadding the hell out of Barry : the sequel, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Daddy Issues, Friendship, Gen, Harm to Children, Mild Horror, also there is a hug, and Barry going back to see his dad at the end of the movie, but communication does eventually happen, everybody's a pighead, father(s) and son(s), getting better, parenting issues, set somewhere between Clark and Barry's race, with a lot of stolen elements from both comics and the DCAU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-11
Updated: 2018-07-11
Packaged: 2019-06-08 16:06:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15246900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androbeaurepaire/pseuds/androbeaurepaire
Summary: Steppenwolf just got defeated and the world is learning about how much superheroes are willing to fight for them.Problem is that sometimes the entire world is easier to convince than your own dad -and your own teammate.(Or : Barry gets a job.)





	The one you save first

**Author's Note:**

> Some time ago I wrote a semi-crack post on tumblr about how Bruce helped Barry getting his job at the end of _Justice League_... and several months later, that idea became an entire angsty/horror fic of his own, about stubborn dads and even more stubborn sons.
> 
> Before this fic I hadn't written anything in YEARS, so not only this is the first piece of fiction I wrote in a long, long time, but this is also the first piece of fiction I wrote entirely in english, which is not my native language, so I double-apologize for any writing and/or language awkwardness ;_;
> 
> Thank you immensely to littleworldofskad, arguei and audreycritter for reading this over beforehand, and helping me gather the courage to post ♥

It doesn’t happen because he asks, or because he says anything at all. When he comes near the lake house, that day, it’s not because he wants to talk to Bruce. It’s the opposite, in fact.

Barry comes here because he wants silence, and anywhere else, with anyone else he knows, that would actually raise questions. He’s got enough of them with Dad already.

Becoming part of a superhero team and saving the world from an alien invasion is not the sort of thing he can put on his resume, so the employers would actually believe he is competent enough to not be fired after a week.

That’s not the sort of thing that will convince Dad that Barry can take care of himself _and_ take care of Dad, either.

So after what had felt like the one too much fight, the one too much time Dad did tell him to stop coming, Barry had come here, because he didn’t want to talk.

(He had tried to do so with Clark, once, after their race. He always loses with Dad. Always. With Clark, he had won and that had made him feel… brave. Like he got this. Like he was good at what he did, like he knew what he was doing by trying to help Dad, no matter how many times Dad said he didn’t want Barry’s help, and it made him feel like someone would actually agree with him about that, for once.

The look on Clark’s face when Barry asked him still haunts him to that day.

The conversation they had about Jonathan Kent, too.

So yeah.

No more talking after parlor visits.)

Batman’s territory as a whole is where silence is The Normal State of Things And How They Should Always Be, but if you actually want to spend some quality brooding time with him in person, the lake house is only the first step. Anyone in the League has to come here first and ask Alfred to open the door that leads downstairs for them.

Well, anyone in the League, and anyone at all, apparently.

Barry had used the speed to come from Central City to Gotham -he always does- but he also always stops short the lake house’s entry driveway, so the five billion cameras and sensors can actually detect his presence and let Alfred know he is coming. He did bypass the old butler once, out of pure excitement and distraction.

Never again.

And he is apparently not the only one who got burned because of it and knows now better than to try. Not the only one who wants to spend some quality brooding time with Bruce, either.

He hears the voices from afar as he walks towards the house and stops right before they can see him.

“It’s really important, Alfred, I won’t be long. I saw Dick yesterday, and he told me…”

“I assure you, sir, in spite of appearances, Master Wayne and Master Richard _do_ know how to communicate with each other like grown adults, when they’re willing to remember it. You don’t ought to keep acting as their messenger, for both their sake and your own.”

“But it’s not about that! Well, not only, but it’s also about the pictu… “

“Those matters need to be discussed indeed”, Alfred interrupts, putting a gentle but firm hand on the shoulder of the teenager, who’s currently standing before him in the doorway.

He cannot be older than 15 and is wearing a varsity jacket, with what looks like the padded strap of a camera around his neck.

Barry had never seen him before.

“You and Master Wayne will talk” continues Alfred, as he looks the kid in the eyes, “but both of you need to be ready for that. Today, it’s not the case.”

“I am ready, Alfred. I want to help him, and I can. You know it, Dick knows it. He is the only one who doesn’t, and if I could just _talk_ to him…”

This time, it’s both hands Alfred does put on the boy’s shoulders.

“I know, Timothy. I know” he says, bending a little so their faces are on a level. “But please, listen to me when I say: not today. Master Wayne has his reasons whenever he tells you not to come, and I do have mine whenever I let you downstairs anyway when you don’t listen. Today, however, he and I speak of one voice, and for the same reasons. Do you hear me, Master Timothy? You can’t help him, not today at least. He won’t allow it, and neither will I.”

And perhaps it’s the way Alfred says it, the words he chooses – that soft but determined tone that says he won’t change his mind about this.

Perhaps it’s the look on Timothy’s face, that reminds him too much of Clark’s after Barry asked.

Reminds him too much of why he doesn’t want to do so anymore.

Barry knows better. He really does, but right now he finds out he doesn’t care.

So he speeds up past the both of them, and goes straight to the Cave.

“Not today”, yeah. Just. Not fucking today.

Alfred can try and say “you can’t help him” to kids Barry doesn’t know all he wants, but **_not_** to him. He doesn’t give a shit. Both of their Gotham Hardass Majesties can have their fucking bad day, but Barry can have his, too. He might have come here because he didn’t want to talk, but he sure as hell can stay because he wants to fight.

That, too, seems to be The Normal State of Thing in this fucking house.

So, that’s how it happens.

Not because he asks for it, or because he wants to talk about it.

It happens because he is angry, and because he is an idiot.

*

He doesn’t see Bruce, at first.

Not in the computer room, not in the huge ass hangar that is also doubling as a garage and an emergency lab, not even in the gym. Barry knows what they call “the Cave” is way bigger than the parts the League members have been using as their default HQ so far, but no matter how much he has been dying to, he never snuck past the unspoken limits Batman has established for them.

(It’s not true. He did go to the weapon room, once. Bruce can be as high-tech as he wants, no camera of his is fast enough to have caught him putting on that antique helmet and then playing with every single sword in there, Barry is pretty sure. He wouldn’t still be alive otherwise.)

Today, though, he doesn’t care. Not about Batman’s rules, not about the cameras.

He really should have known better.

Because when he goes straight to the medbay, the first thing that hits him is the ridiculously high number of cots, for a room so jealously guarded by a guy who never fails to remind them he prefers working alone.

And right now, Barry might start of get why he does so.

The thing with being faster than light, faster than life, sometimes, is that you never get to experiment things as wholes. Everything that comes to you, comes fragmented. The sight is always what hits him first, with sound way way behind. Everything Barry sees is always mute, at first.

Dead silent.

Like the tiny deformed bodies aligned in front of him. One on each extra cot he knows shouldn’t have been there. Have been installed just for them.

First the sight, then the sound.

 _Sploch. Suck. Sploch_ again, _dripdripdrip_ , and _clang_ in the metal tray.

“God fucking damn it.”

_Break._

_Break break break._

And breathe.

Or rather, inhale as sharply and suddenly as those swords he once played with must have cut into flesh, when Bruce was the one holding them.

Much like the scalpel he is currently using to remove the sawing wheel and the rusty metal hook from one of the children’s arms, where it had been grafted.

Welded with skin and muscle.

Of all sensations, smell is always the last, and often the strongest.

“Sink. Behind you.”, Bruce barks.

He turns around just in time so the content of his stomach doesn’t end up on the floor, with all the body fluids and motor oil.

Funny, how he had always thought his metabolism would never allow him to belch out like a normal person, as his meals would always get digested too fast for that.

He remembers every single one of his six breakfasts and four lunches, as he heaves and clutches at the chirurgical steel counter, eyes shut so hard he thinks Bruce will actually need to use that scalpel again to pry them open.

But Bruce doesn’t come, and doesn’t cut through him like everything else in the room just did. He just keeps working, making more _dripdripdrip_ and _clang_ and _break_ sounds as Barry wipes his mouth and exits the medbay about fast as he entered.

“Not today” had said Alfred to that kid.

“Not today” has thought Barry as well. And because he never wins, by the end, be it against Dad or against Superman’s memories, he just got thrown out on his ass. Again.

Fuck, he is an idiot.

He walks as far as he can from the smell, the sound and the sight, but does not find it in himself to just leave the Cave. Not when it means facing Alfred upstairs, or the kid if he is still here. (Speeding past them again is not an option right now. His knees are shaking so bad Barry feels like they will detach themselves from his legs and fall behind him if he tries.) Not when it means running away with the stolen image of Bruce dissecting those bodies. Those tiny, tiny mutilated bodies that had looked so… so…

Shit.

Barry jumps from the work bench he had let himself fall onto a couple of seconds ago, and double over the nearest trash bin to vomit again.

It’s easier, this time. He is already empty.

He stays like he is, folded in two, shaking, his eyes riven on the unidentified garbage he just puked on, whose aspect and smell are not disgusting enough to make him forget. It’s not enough to stop the tears from falling down, either, once his body has been dry heaving long enough to realize it didn’t have any other way to let it all out.

It’s not even the children’s bodies anymore before his eyes. It’s another one. An adult one.

A woman he had once touched while she was lying on the living room’s floor, and bleeding. Bleeding so damn much on his hands, that had been too weak to hold her up, to lift her, to help her stand and walk again, to-

“Breathe.”

Another hand, a strong one this time, has landed on his shoulder while another one is gently taking the stinky trash bin away, to replace it with something warm and soft Barry does immediately bury his face in.

Like he had wanted to bury his face in Dad’s chest, all those years ago, but hasn’t been allowed to. Like he _still_ isn’t allowed to.

_I want you to stop coming to see me. I want you to give all of that up._

_I can’t sit here and watch you run in place in Central City for some old dude who isn’t going anywhere._

And Barry had left. Barry had left because Dad had told him to, because Dad knows he isn’t strong enough to lift him up either, to help him stand against injustice and walk away, walk free from the blood and burden of fallen bodies. The ones nobody has been able to understand, to look at and think _“I’m gonna find who did this to you, I’m gonna find the truth because I want to help you, I want you to talk to me and forgive me and tell me how I can ensure that you rest in peace, please, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m…”_

“Barry. Barry your mother isn’t here. She is not angry at you, neither is your father. Breathe. In and out. Slowly.”

The hand on his shoulder is still here, and the other one is now rubbing along his spine, gingerly, as if trying to warm it enough for Barry to straighten up.

He doesn’t want to though.

“Who are they?”

The hand pauses, briefly, and Barry feels its helpless shaking the same way he had seen, heard and smelled the scene, earlier. Outside of time. Deconstructed, and too fast for anyone but him to process.

Bruce doesn’t answer. His hand resumes its movement.

Barry snaps.

“Bruce, who are they and why are they here? There are dead kids in your cave, the Cave we all come down in every week to try and save the world, and there are dead kids in, and you didn’t tell us, and you’re here autopsying them like it’s normal, like it’s just what you do ; and doesn’t _this fucking trash city_ have a police department to do that job or what, Bruce, _why the fuck are they here ?_ ”

He breathes.

There is a fresh wound on Bruce’s throat, dressed in sterile gauze, that Barry didn’t notice earlier but hits him now like a slap, as he turns to the man to shout at him.

He doesn’t look away from that wound for a long, long moment, before Bruce exhales sharply and actually answers. As he speaks, Barry keeps his eyes on it and tells himself it’s the reason his voice hurts so much. 

“There was a fire yesterday, in the Bowery. A tailor shop. Three members of the GCPD and their families live in that building. When I got there, they had all already started to get everyone from the apartments above out, so I avoided the ER and went down the shop’s basement to make sure nobody was trapped there.”

Funny, how the sight always comes first to him when he is pissed enough to look around when he shouldn’t, and always last when he calms down enough to do so when he should.

Bruce’s throat is not the only part of him that is wrapped in gauze, and all that white feels about just as strange as his voice against all his usual black.

Against all the red in the other room.

“There was noise in the basement” Bruce continues. “Cries, like animals in pain.”

Barry feels like puking again.

“Were they… ?”

“It was dogs. Locked up in cages and howling, half crazy from fear and pain. The cages were electric and the power was on, going through their paws. There was light everywhere. Table in a corner with a mess of spilled beer and a couple of fifties soaking in it. There was also a black board on the wall, with a betting pool and broken chalk sticks on the floor. They’d left in a hurry, probably as soon as they heard the fire alarm. They took the money -lots of it given the numbers on that pool- but they left the light and the dogs they were about to set loose on each other. The only cages that weren’t electrified-…”

Bruce pauses, and blinks. Twice.

Thrice, even. Barry is fast enough to count.

When Bruce starts again, his voice doesn’t hurt anymore.

It feels even worse than that.

“They were in them. The children. They were in the cages, like the dogs. Dead.”

Bruce doesn’t take the towel from Barry’s hands, because Barry doesn’t actually tear it up apart.

He feels like all his muscles just turned to stone, and like he will never be able to run again the way he desperately wants to.

Finally dead to movement, like the rest of the world has always been to him.

 _“I could have saved him,_ ” Superman had said _. “I was faster than the tornado. Faster than everything he feared would see me, faster than the world itself. I could have moved, but I didn’t, because he told me no. Because he didn’t want me to save him.”_

 _“I want you to stop coming to see me,”_ Dad had said while going back to his cage. His cage where he wanted to stay and die.

“I bought the children here,” Bruce says through his broken throat, with his broken voice and terrifying eyes, “because the names that were written along the money numbers, on that betting pool, were those of the GCPD cops who lived in that building.”

 _“You can’t help him, Master Timothy,”_ Alfred had said _. “Not today. He won’t allow it, and neither will I.”_

The both of them stay where they are on that bench, silent, and still as stone.

Two more statues in the world. Like monuments to everyone you can’t, and don’t, and will never move to save.

From the other side of the Cave, the laughing Robin uniform is looking right back at them.

*

He goes back to Central City not so long after. He doesn’t say goodbye to Bruce, nor hello to Alfred, whom he does manages to avoid once more, by the end.

The kid, Timothy, is nowhere to be seen.

Just like him, Barry disappears.

*

He gets fired from two of his other part-time jobs, that day.

He’s got only one left.

That night, he doesn’t show up to take his shift.

*

They call him one hour later, but he doesn’t answer.

*

For the first time since the electrical storm, almost a year ago, Barry goes out and buys some booze.

He doesn’t speed up on his way home. He walks.

He drinks.

It doesn’t do much. It doesn’t do anything.

Nothing really does for him anymore, except running.

But he doesn’t have a road ahead.

*

He has to go back to his apartment, eventually. That’s what he tells himself as he wanders across the Gem City Bridge and walks further and further away from Central.

For all the improbable and strange places he has been around the world since he has started working with the League, and for all the places he could go with the Speed, Barry has never been much of an explorer; the streets of Keystone are about as unfamiliar to him as had been the Pacific Coast.

At least Clark had been there to give him direction, last time.

He walks through Business District, passing by buildings and shops, bright neon signs and faded graffities, pizza parlors and dark alleyways full of stray cats and trash cans -a massive blurry mess of details he doesn’t even know how to try and focus on. Sight, hearing, smell. At that speed, nothing makes sense anymore and his knees and feet are shaking, hurting from the slow.

_Clang._

The half empty beer can falls from his hand, like the sewing wheel and metal hook had fell from Bruce’s as he was removing them from that kid’s body.

Fuck.

Barry lets himself falls on a bus stop bench, legs giving up.

Like Bambi’s on the ice, or those dogs’ in the electrified cages.

He feels his eyes burning, but he doesn’t tear up.

He can’t.

He didn’t cry when he found Mom either. He just fell. Too weak to hold her up, too weak to hold himself.

Barry always knew he wasn’t one of the big, strong ones. He learned that in high school while he was pulling his legs up as he sat on the toilet seat, so the assholes that were after him couldn’t see him. He learned that while he was scraping his hands and knees to the blood as he climbed through the window afterwards, because he knew they were waiting at the door. He had left all of his books behind in the cabin once, because they had betrayed his and Daphne’s presence the day before by falling loudly on the ground as they were escaping, and they had have to wait for the assholes to appear under the window, so they could hastily fall back inside and run in the opposite direction.

It had always been like that, for Barry. Either loosing his legs and falling on the spot, or running. No in between. He never learned how to take a punch, because he never thought of throwing one. Funny, how the storm that changed him forever actually made him what he always was: the guy who would run fast enough to steal the gun from a mugger but would freeze and fall apart at the mere idea of _fighting_.

_“I can’t be there.”_

_“I’ve just pushed some people and ran away.”_

_I’m not like you, guys._

_I can’t just step in and stand between people and the bad guys, I can’t just raise my shield and take the blows and keep walking. I’m faster than bullets but I can’t just stop and catch them simply because I believe, simply because I know how… because I don’t. I don’t know how._

_My dad is scared and so am I._

_He doesn’t want me to stand and fight for him, he wants me to run. Because children die and I don’t know how to deal with dead children, so maybe deep down I know why he doesn’t, either._

_I know why he can’t._

_But I don’t know how to make things better. Hell, even Clark didn’t know and I’m not Superman, I’m not Diana, I’m not even…_

**“WALLY !!!!”**

( _“Save one person.”_ )

Sight.

Always the sight, first.

When he hears the woman’s cry, the world has already stopped dead around him and he is already on his feet, running through the bus stop’s side glass plate to the avenue. He runs between the cars and trucks and green lights and picks up the kid who is looking at the nine wheels in front of him the same way Barry must have looked at Steppenwolf, that very first time.

He wraps his arms around the tiny, tiny boy and squeeze him just a little too tight, before he carries him back to the sidewalk.

The woman who screamed -is still screaming as she looks where the child was a Barry’s intervention ago- is leaning forward, arms half extended, ready to jump and throw herself between the roaring engines to rescue her son.

Barry carefully moves the boy to his right hip and grabs her as well, before moving them both away from the street.

He carries them to the nearest park, which is almost empty at this hour, wanting to make sure neither of them accidentally jumps into another danger as soon as they realize they’re not when they were a fraction of second ago. He puts down the woman first, then the boy, carefully setting them a few feet away from each other before taking off.

Reality roars back to life, and mother crashes into her son.

"WALLY, what… Wally, oh, Wally, Wally, what happened, you…"

"Aunt Iris !!"

Ah. Not her son, then.

From behind the huge statue where he had retreated, Barry does what he had not been able to do since he left the Cave : he watches, and listens.

"Oh God, Wally, I thought-… I thought you…"

Her face is buried in the boy’s thick ginger locks, and her shoulders are shaking just as bad as the kid as she laughs hysterically.

Barry stays hidden. He is in his civilian identity, he shouldn’t show his face.

He doesn’t need to.

He watches as they hug and listens as they cry and laugh and wonder what the hell just happened.

“Maybe it was Superman ? Oh, auntie, you think it was Superman ?!”

“Well, Superman usually sticks around after he saves someone…”

Barry smiles. Maybe one day he will, too. Who knows.

For now, he just watches and listens and smells as they pass by an ice cream truck, where the woman buys two triple Italian cones. She and her nephew eat as they walk, still shaking and clutching at each other a little too tight -but laughing.

Safe.

Saved.

_“I’ve just pushed some people and ran away.”_

Barry stays hidden and follows them from afar just long enough to make sure they both get home, before he crosses the river back to Central City.

He didn’t talk. He didn’t fight.

He saved someone.

And as he goes back home himself, legs and knees alive again, he thinks that maybe

(maybe)

he kind of knows what to do, now.

*

“Did you find who they are ?”

Barry did go through Alfred first to announce himself, this time, and there is something really satisfying about having properly punched in and _yet_ gone down fast enough to startle Batman.

Well, the equivalent of startling for Batman, at least. Still, it’s awesome enough to make Barry almost smile, despite what he is actually here to ask.

Bruce didn’t turn to him, after his small surprised tremor. He doesn’t answer him, either.

But Barry isn’t Superman, that much has been well established at least. He is _faster_ than Superman, and that means he is able to see Bruce’s hands tremble on the keyboard, as well as his gaze do a micro jump in the direction of the medbay.

That means he is able to go there before Bruce can catch himself, and see the five tiny -so, so fucking tiny- mortuary boxes in place of the cots from the last time.

That means he can look at each of them, the five boys and girls and their missing limbs -their missing _faces_ \- where had been grafted those sick deadly weapons and broken doll masks that Bruce had removed. All of them were now laying there, cleansed but not peaceful.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever. But Barry was there to try at least this time.

He looks at them and then goes back to the computer room just as Bruce’s eyes finish their movement. Barry breathes again, and the whole room comes back to life.

“I can help.”

“No.”

“Bruce, I can help you identify those kids,” he insists. “I can help you with the autopsy so you can find who did this faster and…”

“I don’t need your help. Get out of here.”

Bruce is in a three-pieces suit right now, but his voice is so full of burning, abrasive hostility that he could as well have been wearing the cowl’s modulator. He is still facing the computer, his back to Barry, and his posture is about as friendly as a batarang in the face.

It’s not the first time he tries to throw one at him though, and not the first time Barry dodges and catches it.

“Bullshit”, he says. “ _You_ broke into my apartment, _Batman_ , because you needed me to do just that. You needed my help. You put that whole Power Rangers team together because you knew you couldn’t handle things on your own, because you needed help and you _knew it_. How’s that different?”

Sight first. Always. Barry sees it. That micro jump of Bruce’s eyes, again. Only this time, he doesn’t look towards the mortuary boxes in the medbay.

He looks at the one in the middle of the Cave.

It would have helped Barry understand what was going on if he hadn’t already.

Bruce breathes.

Here we go.

“This is not an alien invasion, Barry. There is nothing alien about this. This is human. This is _Gotham_. It’s everything ugly we can do to each other without ever needing extraterrestrial monsters to come and hurt us. The League exists to protect humanity, but here humanity _is_ the threat. The team has nothing to do here. I don’t need it. I don’t need you.”

“I’m human too, you know. I grew up human, I grew up normal, just like you and everyone in there. Now I’m just a bit faster than average, just like you’re a bit weirder and a lot, **_lot_** more pigheaded. But you’re human and yet? Surprise bitch, here you are, trying to find a psychopath murderer so he can’t kill anyone else, and you’re doing it the human way. Why can’t I do it with you?”

“Because you’re a _child.”_

And that’s it. That’s the blow Barry had known was coming. The fight he never knew how to stand, except by ducking and running.

_“I’m not like you, guys.”_

Except he is. He is, he just told Bruce so and he _believes_ it. And just like Bruce told _him_ , back in those sewers, he does know what to do now.

“Well, I’m not _your_ child”, he says, as evenly as he can.

Bruce blinks again but Barry doesn’t run this time.

“I’m not your child”, he says again, “and you don’t get to push me away because today is a bad day filled with bad things and you don’t want me to deal with them. You don’t get to tell me to leave you rotting in your misery because you think I deserve better than trying to help you. Because -surprise again- you think you’re helping, you think it’s the noble thing to do but it’s not, it’s the selfish thing to do, selfish and coward, because the truth is : you’ve given up. You have, and you want me to do the same so you don’t feel bad about it and _I_ am the one who is left feeling like shit, with all the guilt and regret because I failed you!!”

Sight.

Bruce is right in front of him, looking him in the eyes.

It’s Barry’s turn to blink. Several times, even.

“If you’re not my child,” Bruce says very low, “then I’m not your father, either. I’m not Henry Allen.”

Barry snorts. He can’t help it.

“And yet here you are, in your dark fancy high-tech prison, telling me to get out because you don’t want my help.”

He is still blinking furiously, and Bruce turns around to grab a small pack of tissues that he slaps on his chest.

“Just look around you.”

That’s all he says. That’s all he is ever going to say about it, Barry knows. Not talking is The Normal State Of Things, here, especially about elephants (ghosts) in the room.

He sniffles and takes a tissue.

“I’m not yours to keep alive. I’m not yours at all. So if you’re not my dad, either, what do we do? You can’t throw me out, that would only prove my point.”

To Barry’s surprise, Bruce is the one who snorts this time, sharp and actually amused.

“Wipe that snotty nose, then, if you don’t want to prove mine.”

For a few minutes, they don’t say anything else. Barry does blow his nose, and Bruce does not turn his back on him again.

“I can help”, he repeats, a bit shaky but clear enough.

Bruce stays silent and doesn’t move.

For the first time since meeting him, Barry wonders if _Batman_ actually knows what to do himself.

Turns out that even if he doesn't, he still makes his choice.

Barry watches him as he goes back to the computer and presses a couple of keys.

“Alfred? Could we have some sandwiches down there? Barry’s gonna need calories.”

“Aye aye, sir” the butler’s voice replies from the speakers, just as wry and unimpressed as ever.

Bruce does not look at him again as he sits back in his chair, but he does briskly pull a smaller wheel stool from under the desk and just leaves it at his side.

Barry smiles for real this time.

Maybe the first person you’ve got to save so you actually know what to do is yourself, after all.

*

It takes them longer than they both would have wanted, longer than it should. Barry reviews Bruce’s autopsy results, his notes and his first chemical analyses, and then performs a whole new series of tests of his own on the removed doll parts. He works as fast as he can and he is not afraid (he never has been) to gush about Batman’s ridiculously advanced lab tech, much more complex and sophisticated than anything he learned with back at SCU.

Bruce, of course, says nothing and uses the extra time Barry gives him to focus on the missing children case files. Or rather, on the missing case files for missing children, in the GCPD’s databases he hacks.

(Gotham’s particular brand of corruption, too, is much more complex than anything Barry ever learned in school.)

All of it takes times.

Barry tries and fails and tries again to determine what kinds of chemicals were used for the dolls grafts, how long it had taken the children’s bodies to accept them, when the surgery must have happened. Bruce tracks and collects every deleted information, every data incoherence, every erased emergency call, trying to fill in the blanks of a city’s history that is already full of dead children.

They look for the dates, the names, and it takes time.

Neither of them is new at this but also neither of them had ever done that with the other before, and it makes everything… difficult.

Barry talks, and Bruce snaps, like he doesn’t know how else to respond. Sometimes when Alfred comes down the stairs with another tray of sandwiches and a strange, wistful look on his face, Barry wonders how many years have passed since Batman has actually had anyone to be difficult with while working.

(The only time Barry does shut up to try and make things easier is when Bruce calls Commissioner Gordon, to talk about the cops’ names on that betting pool.

There are some elephants (ghosts) you’re just better off ignoring, and some jokes that are actually on you.)

*

Bruce leaves, at some point. He still has places to be, meetings to attend, and other calls -light calls- from Gotham to answer. Sometimes Barry goes back home, taking USB flash drives and samples with him so he can keep working in his own apartment’s lab. Bruce says nothing to that, but when Barry sits down at his desk back in Central for the first time, he realizes all the files related to the case have already been uploaded and encrypted on his most secure hard-drive. He also realizes his entire system has been upgraded to run the Cave’s more advanced softwares.

That day, he almost runs back to Gotham _just_ to draw a dick on the Batsignal.

(And maybe a smiley face, too.)

Some other times, though, he stays in the Cave. _He_ doesn’t have places to be, not anymore at least… and, well, he likes it here. Even with the case. Even with the ghosts.

Bruce says nothing to that, either.

Alfred comes down more often, when Barry stays here on his own. Not only does the butler helps him a lot with the medical reports and the technical readouts, but he also makes sure Barry never has to ASK for more snacks. And so Barry stays even longer, and likes it here even more.

It takes time, it’s difficult, but by the end it works.

Bruce takes a couple more trips to the Bowery’s devastated basement, meets with Gordon on the rooftops and, somewhere in the middle, carefully avoids every suspect cop whose home he sneaks in to investigate.

Barry finds out what components had been used to make and then graft those mechanical doll prostheses, what toxins were injected, where they must come from and how long the kids have been exposed.

Bruce is able to reconstitute the GCPD’s erased history of shame, and Barry to determine when exactly the monstrous chimeras must have been created.

By the end, they find the children’s names.

They find their families.

And slower than they both would have wanted but faster than if they had tried alone, they also do find the one who did this to them.

*

His name is Anton Schott.

He doesn’t have a face. Not anymore. He moves and looks and smells like a doll, rusted metal and broken pink porcelain, but when he screams as Renee Montoya and Maggie Sawyer pushes him into the armored van, his voice is sickeningly human.

“I saved them! I didn’t want to hurt them, I would never have done that! Children need protection! Children get hurt, all the time, I only made them able to survive! I only made them strong!!”

Barry doesn’t look.

He can’t.

Jim Gordon is probably aware of that because he does take him further away from the small gathering of vehicles and police officers (the ones who didn’t bet. The ones who came out of uniform, so the children could look at them. So they could look at themselves.), and tells him as gently as he can :

“Thank you. To you and him, both.”

Barry thinks about the first time he met Gordon, back on that Gotham rooftop, when it was still just him, Diana and Bruce. When Victor landed from the sky, and told them where to go.

When Barry turned to thank the Commissioner and realized they’d all been faster than him.

The corner of his mouth twitches, as he takes the hand Gordon holds out and shakes it.

It was Bruce who did stay behind this time, deliberately.

Because there were children to make sure they didn’t get scared further, in the abandoned toys factory compound they had found Schott in.

There were children alive. Children they found in time and freed from their cages.

Batman had looked him in the eyes and he told him he trusted the Flash to handle this, when they’d heard the cops’ sirens and seen their cars arrive.

He told him it was a job he could do, as he stayed in the shadows of the storeroom himself so he could keep holding the small bunch of terrified kids close, and telling them they were gonna be okay. Making them believe it.

So the Flash had gone out and met the police, and he had explained them everything.

“I just did my job”, he tells Gordon as he still carefully doesn’t look at Schott and his broken doll face, forcing himself to think about the living, breathing kids in Batman’s arms instead.

The ones who are safe.

The ones who were saved.

“I just did my job”, he says again.

It’s barely a whisper when it comes out from his lips and yet that’s the only thing Jim Gordon seems to listen to, as Schott’s screams fade more and more away from them.

“Parents can’t take care of their kids! They can’t!! Kids need to be alone and strong. I saved them. I saved them, **_I SAVED THEM!!!_** ”

“You did”, Gordon merely whispers back as he squeezes Barry’s hand.

And it’s the only thing Barry listens to as well.

*

The rescued children go home.

The dead ones too.

Barry holds a crying father who launches himself at him when he hears his daughter laugh, burying his face in the Flash’s shoulder like he doesn’t want to look and risks the illusion to shatter.

Barry doesn’t move and just hold him as long as he needs.

Bruce takes the responsibility to bring the five dead children’s bodies to their families. Of course he does.

Of course.

For an entire week, Barry doesn’t hear a word from him. He doesn’t call, either. He doesn’t ask.

But when he does show up on the driveway that leads to the lake house, the one filled with cameras and sensors he goes slow enough to deliberately set off again, that night, nobody comes out to stop him.

He walks in and is greeted by Alfred, and thinks “Yes. Today.”

Bruce is not in the Cave this time. He is in the house’s living room, sitting at the table.

The kid, Timothy, is there with him.

There is another man with them too, one Barry doesn’t know. He is young, though probably not much younger than Barry himself, and when he does rise to his feet to welcome the new guest as well, Barry sees it.

The fraction of second look the young man exchanges with Bruce, and Bruce’s imperceptible nod.

The way they move together.

Alike.

Barry lets himself stares at them with an expression that is almost awe. No longer than the thought of a blink.

The young man rises his hand, as does Timothy, and Barry shakes them both before waving at Bruce, who simply looks at him in silence before gesturing at a free chair.

He doesn’t smile. But somehow, impossibly, he looks younger than Barry has ever seen him.

Younger and not hurting.

Barry does take the chair, sits down at the table with Bruce, Richard (“Dick.”) and Timothy (“Tim.”) and spends the evening.

(“Yes. Today.”)

*

That night on his way home, he texts Clark and asks him if he want to race again.

Tomorrow, he will go see Dad.

*

“You have an appointment first.”

“What?”

“Before you go see your father,” Bruce’s voice tells him at the other end of the line. “You have an appointment first.”

Barry opens his mouth to reply, but even he isn’t fast enough to find the words before his computer bleeps and a new e-mail pops up open itself on the nearest monitor.

It says he’s got a job interview tomorrow at 9am, at the CCPD.

With the Forensics Department.

Barry’s mouth stays open and he stops trying to find words. Stops thinking altogether.

“Your date is Captain Darryl Frye,” Bruce continues. “He is good. He knows his job. And he knows you know yours, too.”

“…”

“Try to wear something professional. No Star Wars shirt. And _no_ _plaid hoodie_.”

Barry feels like he is watching himself from a distance the exact same way he watches at the world when using the Speed Force.

Like he is dying.

Like his heart went running away so fast it left his brain behind. Or maybe it’s the other way around, he is not sure.

“Barry?”

He hangs up without a word and runs away for good.

*

He thinks about going to see Dad right away. That’s what he had planned after all, and he really, really wants an excuse to yell right now.

He also thinks about going to the lake house and apologize. He thinks about going back to Russia just so he could see the ruins of Steppenwolf’s fortress and remember they won.

He thinks about seeing the five dead children’s bodies being autopsied in the Cave for the first time, and puking his guts out.

He thinks about Mom. About applying for college and choosing what he chose.

He thinks about showing his diploma to Dad through a prison parlor glass wall, a couple of years ago, and then about never showing it again to anyone.

Especially not employers.

He runs.

Nothing dies, this time. Nothing is left behind.

Maybe nothing really was after all.

*

He doesn’t go anywhere but home, by the end, and when he sets foot in Central and pushes the door of his apartment open, Bruce is here.

Again.

“You do know it’s not actually my second favorite chair, right? You do know it’s my favorite, period. You plucked me out of yours the other day just because your Majesty couldn’t stand the idea of another butt than yours sitting in that monstrosity. Do you actually use it to wheel around in the Cave when Alfred doesn’t look? I bet you do, because we all like doing stupid shit in our favorite chairs, it’s okay, I get it. In fact, I myself actually do a lot of stuff in this one I could totally tell you about right now, so you would bolt out of it and never, ever, think about stealing it again-…”

“Barry.”

“-and it’s not cool to steal my chair and not letting me do the same, like, I told you I wasn’t your kid, man, we’re teammates, and teammates don’t-“

Bruce doesn’t throw a batarang at him this time either, but Barry shuts his mouth all the same.

Sight first.

Bruce brought him a suit. Several of them in fact. They’re all perfectly folded on his table, ironed within an inch of their life. He can see slacks and jackets and dress shirts, all in different colors that are neutral and work environment appropriate. And there are ties, too.

A whole, terrifyingly well aligned array of ties.

Fuck, it’s not a dick he is gonna draw on the Batsignal, it’s a goddamn…

It’s…

“You will be fine”, Bruce tells him as he stands up and as Barry tries really hard to find his breathe.

Bruce hands him a printed copy of the e-mail he had sent him earlier, along with a file folder.

It has a little handwritten “Barrence Allen” sticky note on it.

“If you ever, ever tell Arthur about that…”, Barry murmurs. Or tries to, at least.

Bruce just stares at him, silent.

He’s got his usual poker face on, the one that is almost as good as Batman’s cowl sometimes, when it comes to making people uncomfortable.

Today though, it helps.

Because then he doesn’t need to say anything for Barry to remember.

He does know what to do.

He has known it for a while, now.

“… I don’t have shoes to go with this kind of clothes.”

“That’s why I came. I didn’t have your size. Put your jacket on, we’re going out.”

“Can I drive the Mercedes, this time?”

“I brought the Audi.”

Barry tries to laugh, but he can’t even do that either. He just clutches at the folder, at the e-mail from the CCPD, and doesn’t thank Bruce. Not really. He doesn’t run, either.

What he does, however, is using the Speed to catch up with Bruce’s long stride as he is already walking towards the door.

Barry walks past him and just stands before the man, invisible.

It’s not about leaving anything behind, he thinks.

It’s about breathing, deep and slow, in that indescribable moment in time and space when nothing dies and he and the world just fall out of step. That moment when he can see, and hear, and smell everything.

When he can touch, too, and save people.

He stands before Bruce in that very, very moment and wraps his arms around his waist, burying his face in that large chest, and hugs him as tight as possible.

No longer than the thought of a blink.

Bruce walks towards the door and Barry follows him, laughter back on his face and chatting like he always does, while Bruce pretends not to listen and grunts.

The next morning, when he does go see Dad, it’s a certificate of employment Barry shows him through the parlor’s glass.

**Author's Note:**

> As said in the tags, I shamelessly stole Anton Schott's version of the Dollmaker from the DCAU (specifically from _Batman VS Robin_ ), and the idea of the corrupted cops organizing dog fights in a tailor shop basement is from _Batman : Zero Year._
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://androbeaurepaire.tumblr.com/), where I mostly commit fanart, and also have a lot of feelings about Batman, comics, and the DCEU in general.


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